Latest Articles

Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts

March 4, 2024

By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking agreement with their standard theoretical model of how the universe evolves.

Mollusk Eyes Reveal How Future Evolution Depends on the Past

February 29, 2024

The visual systems of an obscure group of mollusks provide a rare natural example of path-dependent evolution, in which a critical fork in the creatures’ past determined their evolutionary futures.

What Is the Nature of Time?

February 29, 2024

Time is all around us: in the language we use, in the memories we revisit and in our predictions of the future. But what exactly is it? The physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek joins Steve Strogatz to discuss the fundamental hallmarks of time.

How Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better

February 28, 2024

Erasing key information during training results in machine learning models that can learn new languages faster and more easily.

‘Entropy Bagels’ and Other Complex Structures Emerge From Simple Rules

February 27, 2024

Simple rules in simple settings continue to puzzle mathematicians, even as they devise intricate tools to analyze them.

A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal Stability. Now the Idea May Be Falling Apart.

February 26, 2024

A series of advances seemed to promise the impossible: the existence of quantum states that would never, ever fall into disarray. But physicists are now discovering that the pull of disorder may not be so easily overcome.

Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information

February 23, 2024

Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction.

A New Agenda for Low-Dimensional Topology

February 22, 2024

This past October, dozens of mathematicians gathered in Pasadena to create the third version of “Kirby’s list” — a compendium of the most important unsolved problems in the field.

Q&A

A Multitalented Scientist Seeks the Origins of Multicellularity

February 21, 2024

The pathbreaking geneticist Cassandra Extavour pursues the secrets of multicellular life while balancing careers in both science and singing.

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